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Ask HN: Restarting the YC Podcast – who would be most interesting to listen to?

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Re: Ask HN: Restarting the YC Podcast – who would be most interesting to listen to?

#41

Post by craigcannon »

wwalser wrote: post #26
craigcannon wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So was it tracking a company that made it interesting or the fact that there was more than an hour of conversations with them?

Not the op but: Gimlet is very good at creating well put together and edited stories. That seasons is very human and dives headlong into the painful (and beautiful) parts of slowly grinding and iterating toward failure. Failure from an investor perspective at least, it ends up being a non-scalable, labor intensive lifestyle business that loads of people would be proud to have built. It was the opposite of the YC podc…

Yup. We definitely will cover more than YC companies and success stories.

Fwiw, I do like the success stories but prefer a longer interview (90 min+) because you get a real sense of the person vs the PR version of them/their company.

Re: Ask HN: Restarting the YC Podcast – who would be most interesting to listen to?

#42

Post by kurttheviking »

craigcannon wrote: post #38
kurttheviking wrote: post #23

In addition to founder analysis and commentary, I think it would be useful to hear from industry veterans about ongoing challenges/opportunities in their industry and how new companies can/should attack them. In a similar vein, how does socio-economic and political change affect these opportunities (e.g. new legislation in certain markets allowing for new technologies and processes to gain traction).

I like that a lot.

Another thought I had is something debate-like; if you've ever listened to the Intelligence Squared podcasts they basically take an issue and have two "teams" of two people debate the issue. From a start-up perspective it would be interesting to hear founders or veterans debate topics like "BitCoin is going to revolutionize micropayments". I'm not sure if this is a good idea or a terrible idea but I thought I'd put it out there for discussion.

Re: Ask HN: Restarting the YC Podcast – who would be most interesting to listen to?

#43

Post by craigcannon »

jkingsbery wrote: post #40

I love hearing Russ Roberts of econ talk ( http://www.econtalk.org/ ), but he's almost always interviewing someone. It would be cool to hear him because (1) he interviews a lot of people who either write about or are involved in building the future (automation, driverless cars, sharing economy, etc.), and (2) he has a different perspective on how to approach problems making him interesting to listen to.

Right on. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Restarting the YC Podcast – who would be most interesting to listen to?

#44

Post by craigcannon »

kurttheviking wrote: post #42
craigcannon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like that a lot.

Another thought I had is something debate-like; if you've ever listened to the Intelligence Squared podcasts they basically take an issue and have two "teams" of two people debate the issue. From a start-up perspective it would be interesting to hear founders or veterans debate topics like "BitCoin is going to revolutionize micropayments". I'm not sure if this is a good idea or a terrible idea but I thought I'd put i…

Totally. I love when people make public bets. One of the episode ideas I drafted was along those lines re: AI.

What topics would you want to hear discussed?

Re: Ask HN: Restarting the YC Podcast – who would be most interesting to listen to?

#45

Post by gordon_freeman »

craigcannon wrote: post #14
gordon_freeman wrote: post #2

I'd like to hear from Founders who have very interesting stories and journeys to share. I do not care if their products got traction,flopped or big hit. All I want to get is how can we as listeners can learn from their success or failures. Thanks for doing this.

Yup! Lmk if anyone is of particular interest to you.

So Airbnb founders for their grit and determination -- maxing out all their credit cards and even started selling political branded cereal boxes to keep the lights on.

Dollar Shave Club on their growth strategies -- how they posted a product video which went viral and got started their business.

I know, these are the success ones but would also love to hear from founders whose apps/startups did not work out.

Again, it is great to see someone from HN getting this involved in getting suggestions and feedback. Thanks.

Looking forward to the podcast.

Re: Ask HN: Restarting the YC Podcast – who would be most interesting to listen to?

#46

Post by ejsilva »

I would love to hear from the right hand support teams for growing tech companies (Tesla, Amazon, Google, etc.). What makes them great support staff for founders, and how do you either look for such people, and/or if you are one, kick butt in your role. Thanks!

Re: Ask HN: Restarting the YC Podcast – who would be most interesting to listen to?

#47

Post by ejsilva »

philip1209 wrote: post #6

I'd love to hear "office hour"-style stuff. Somebody who's having a problem, you work on solving it together, then maybe in a month you do a retro on how it worked. Might be cool to wait enough time that the episode has a "before and after" in the same episode.

Agree, this is a fantastic idea.

Re: Ask HN: Restarting the YC Podcast – who would be most interesting to listen to?

#49

Post by dzink »

Tactical steps YC startups have taken to jump through any one of the de-risking steps: https://codingvc.com/how-to-de-risk-a-startup/ would be fantastic. Especially stories of creative jumps. You could do a poll of the YC network internally and have people share stories that then get mentioned per-problem or per-industry over time. A discussion underneath could allow others to share stories as well - beyond the YC network (that may allow you guys to spot interesting potential applicants and keep people engaged).

Generic advice is abundant and far less helpful. Individual founders could do episodes as well, but it's hard to be genuine and talk about the hard stuff when your startup's identity is affected - especially in front of customers and investors.

By focusing on a problem - the contributing founders can chose to get credit or stay anonymous with their answers. You could also do an episode on just cool "Tell us about a time when you've hacked a non-computer system." answers and it would be a great listen.

Re: Ask HN: Restarting the YC Podcast – who would be most interesting to listen to?

#50

Post by giarc »

cbau wrote: post #48

I really liked hearing the information that was hard to find elsewhere: mostly the story of the company's founding and early days, and their analysis of their markets. Was very useful when interviewing within YC's portfolio!

I agree - I think a podcast of company origins would be great. I think that teaches entrepreneurs more than hearing about their thoughts on the future or other unrelated markets.
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